Black Frog, page 18
Retreating to her room above the Black Frog, Emma turned out the lights, climbed into bed, and realized she was going to have to find a place to hide from Anne Quinn and her questions. Listening to the murmur of voices and occasional laughter drifting up from the restaurant dock and watching the reflection of light off the lake making patterns on the ceiling, she drifted off to sleep.
Shortly after two in the morning Emma woke up. It was quiet now – the restaurant had closed and the tiki bar on the dock had shut down hours ago. She wasn’t sure what had woken her – maybe a sound in the hallway. Moving to the door to her room she turned on the light and noticed a square ivory colored envelope on the floor – apparently pushed under the door while she slept. Reaching down and picking it up, Emma noticed it was high quality and unsealed, and had her name written on the front in calligraphy. Lifting the flap she extracted a thick card and drew in a quick breath as she read its message, written in a beautiful calligraphy script.
You are invited to the wedding ceremony of
Emma L. Lange
And
Jimmy Bob Lentz
Saturday Next at 2 PM
The summit of Mount Kineo
R.S.V.P.
Emma read the invitation over again, and then turned it over. On the back was written, in block letters, “I need you to tell my story” and an email address. She turned her attention to the envelope. Reaching inside, she pulled out a small piece of threadbare blue ribbon – it was something old, something blue, and something he was letting her borrow for the wedding – all she needed now was something new.
Excited now, Emma emailed off to the address on the invitation that she very much wanted to tell the Cowboy’s story and would meet him at the top of Mount Kineo the following day at the appointed time. Quickly packing her clothes she slipped out of her room and into the darkness. It was only a short walk through the small park dedicated to Henry David Thoreau to reach her car, which was parked in the large public lot next to the Moosehead Maritime Museum. Throwing her bag in the back seat Emma turned left out of the lot and headed up the east side of Moosehead Lake on Lily Bay road. About halfway to Kokadjo she made another left and drove down a steep side road toward the lake. Rounding a corner, the lakeside cabin where she had spent so many weekends as a girl came into view. It was closed up now - her good friend Jacqueline Hollister’s parents had passed away several years ago, and Jacqueline rarely visited it since moving out of state. The key to the cabin was still hidden where Emma remembered – hanging from a hook behind the “Beware of Dog” sign. Ignoring the dusty surfaces and mouse droppings, she opened several windows and flipped the main circuit breaker. Emma was sure that Jacqueline wouldn’t mind her staying at the cabin for a week or so. Tomorrow she could interview the Cowboy and then hole up here at Jacqueline’s cabin to write up her piece. It would be a blockbuster she was sure, and the Boston Globe would jump at the chance to publish it. Maybe she could turn it into a book. She was even willing to participate in his weird marriage ceremony if it was the price to pay for the interview, although there was no way she was going to go through with any consummation of the marriage with him. Emma had a history of taking risks and striding headlong into sketchy situations, and had convinced herself that although he had threatened his previous “brides” he had never actually hurt them much, other than the sex, and she could talk him out of the need to “put the baby.”
Emma knew she had to stay off the roads – the Greenville police and county sheriff’s deputies would be watching for her car now. There was another way for her to reach Mt. Kineo, however – the steamboat Katahdin would be departing on a Kineo cruise in the morning at nine AM. She was confident that she could paddle her kayak down the east side of Moosehead Lake to Greenville in the morning and slip aboard the Katahdin without being noticed. Emma and Jacqueline had often made the same trip down to the Black Frog for lunch when they had stayed at the cabin years ago.
It was clear the next morning, with a wind out of the northwest, and Emma made good time paddling down to Greenville. She stashed her kayak up against the back wall of the Kamp Kamp store, bought her Katahdin cruise ticket in the Moosehead Maritime Museum, and then sat on a bench in the deep shade until people started boarding the Katahdin for its nine o’clock cruise up to Mt. Kineo. It was scheduled to dock at Kineo at about 11:30, which would give her plenty of time for the hike to the top of Mt. Kineo and her two PM meeting with the Cowboy. Finding a spot on the upper deck with a good view of the gangway, Emma watched for familiar faces as people boarded. Once the gangplank had been hoisted onboard and Emma was confident that she hadn’t been followed, she turned to look for the galley – she was looking forward to a sandwich and a strong cup of coffee. Fred Williams was leaning against the wall of the ship’s cabin about 20 feet away, smiling at her.
“Glad I finally caught up with you Emma. You haven’t been returning my calls.”
Emma tried to rush past him but he stepped in front of her. He grasped her arm and was close enough for her to smell his aftershave.
“Emma – there’s no need for concern. I’m on your side. Let me buy you something from the galley and we can sit down and talk. There’s no way you can get off the Katahdin now for several hours and you don’t want to make any sort of a scene and draw attention to yourself. A lot of people are looking for you right now. You don’t want me to make a call do you? There’s plenty of time for them to have a welcoming party waiting for you when we dock if I do.”
Williams led her to a vacant table near the galley and soon returned with sandwiches and coffee. Sitting down across from Emma, he asked his first question.
“So, Emma, how’s the investigation of the axe murders going?”
“Actually Fred, I’ve set it aside for right now – I’m looking into another interesting case – a series of rapes.”
“Rapes? What are you thinking? You need to focus on the murders and making a good case that they weren’t related to the Lily Bay development project.”
“Sorry Fred. This rape story has better legs than the murders – and I’ve got a really promising angle working right now.”
Williams reached across the table and grabbed Emma’s wrist in a crushing grip.
“What did you and Virginia Breen’s brother talk about outside the Sebec Reading Room? Did he know why his sister was killed?”
Jerking her hand away and sitting back in her chair, Emma snapped back.
“Actually, Fred, no. He would only say that she was getting involved with some shifty people and that he had left the company specifically so he would not have any involvement, and that he deliberately avoided learning anything about it. He strongly urged me to also stop poking around and to keep him out of any of my reporting.”
Williams leaned back, took a sip of his coffee, and frowned at Emma.
“I’m disappointed in you Emma. You had such a bright future. Now you’re off on some wild goose chase.”
“Oh, I don’t think so. I’m on my way to get the life story of a serial rapist who I think has quite a story to tell – a pretty strange guy who likes to marry his rape victims.”
Reaching into her purse, Emma extracted the wedding invitation and handed it across the table to Williams. He read it, turned it over and read the back, and looked at Emma with an incredulous expression.
“You’re not really going to meet this guy? Are you insane?”
“It’s going to be fine. He never hurts his victims, other than the sex. I can humor him with a bogus wedding, get his story, and skip the sex. It’s not like he will have me tied up where nobody can see me or hear me – this will be out in the open. Plus he wants his story told so he’s not going to attack me.”
“Emma – this is not a good idea. It’s not safe. You have no idea what this guy is capable of.”
Emma looked calmly across the table and responded, ending the conversation.
“Go fuck yourself Fred.”
Disgusted now, Williams got up from the table and walked away.
Emma spent the rest of the cruise up to Kineo jotting down the questions she wanted to ask the Cowboy, and what she would say to distract him from any effort he might make to “put the baby.”
Storm clouds were building to the north when the Katahdin moored at the Kineo dock and Emma disembarked. She remembered the rough water and heavy rain she had paddled through on her last visit to Mt. Kineo and hoped it wasn’t going to be another gray and nasty afternoon. Gazing up at Mount Kineo, now looming over her, she was glad she still had almost 90 minutes to make the climb.
Somewhat resembling a slice of cake laid on its side and oriented northwest to southeast, Mt Kineo slopes gradually up to its summit from the northwest, with its southern and eastern sides formed by sheer 800-foot cliffs dropping to the lake below. Given the possibility of rough weather and strong winds that can accompany afternoon thunderstorms, Emma decided against trying the Indian Trail, which was the shortest way to the summit but required a fairly steep climb up along the southern cliff face of exposed rhyolite. Instead she took the Carriage Trail along the west shore until it connected with the gradually uphill Bridle Trail leading to the summit. The temperature steadily dropped during her leisurely hike and the few hikers coming the other way, down from the summit, gave her puzzled looks. Climbing to the top of Mt. Kineo in a thunderstorm didn’t seem to them to be a very good idea. Emma just smiled and kept walking. By the time she reached the summit and the old fire tower that now served as a viewing platform for spectacular views out over Moosehead Lake, she appeared to be completely alone. A light rain had started falling, and the wind was picking up as dark clouds rolled over the summit. Emma could see no sign of Cowboy and wondered if she had been stood up. Taking shelter in a campsite lean-to close to the base of the fire tower, she checked her watch – just shy of two PM.
20
Cowboy
Friday – Saturday
Cowboy was surprised at how easy it was to abduct George Peebles. Working from the email that had identified his final target in Maine, Cowboy researched him online and quickly planned his attack. Peebles’s Facebook page mentioned his plans to go fly fishing Friday at the East Outlet of the Kennebec River with his friend Bob Whallon. A search on Google yielded numerous photos of both Peebles and Whallon, and it was a simple matter for Cowboy to find a good vantage point from which to monitor the East Outlet parking lot and wait for them to arrive on Friday morning. He watched them pull into the parking lot, change into their waders, and enter the swiftly flowing Kennebec. Smiling in anticipation as he saw Whallon moving downstream out of sight, Cowboy pulled his blue Ford pickup right up next to their car. Walking over to the river’s edge, he called to Peebles, waving him over to the shore. Checking to make sure that Whallon was still out of sight downstream, Cowboy asked Peebles when he got close enough if he had jumper cables – the battery was dead in his truck.
Peebles frowned, grumbled a bit, but emerged from the river and walked over toward the two vehicles. As soon as they entered a small clump of trees Cowboy used the butt of his knife handle to knock Peebles down with a blow to the back of the head. Ripping the fly rod out of the downed man’s hands, Cowboy threw it in a small ditch and pulled Peebles’s hands behind his back and bound them with a zip tie. Telling Peebles to shut up as he tried to talk, Cowboy dragged him over to the Ford and pushed him into the bed of the pickup. Securing his feet with another zip tie and taping his mouth, Cowboy quickly covered him with a tarp and told him to lie still and he wouldn’t be hurt. Exiting the parking lot and turning south on Route 6, back toward his barn hideaway, Cowboy didn’t see the gaping pothole on the bridge, nor did he notice the axe bouncing out of the back of the truck.
The small branches he always placed across the drive leading to his hideout were still intact, indicating that nobody had been poking around during his absence. Just as Cowboy parked the Ford pickup in the barn next to the Chick Magnet and the white pickup his phone vibrated, indicating an incoming text message. Checking his phone, he was surprised by the text – “444.” It was an emergency directive from his employer to vacate his location, wherever it was, immediately. He knew that Peebles was his final assignment in Maine, and he was planning on shutting down his operation and heading out in the next few days, but this was something different – the “444” message indicated an immediate threat and an urgent need for him to abandon his location as quickly as possible. He had only received the “444” warning once before, when a suspicious neighbor during an assignment in Seattle had alerted police and their raid of his hideout missed him by only a few hours.
Cowboy always prepared carefully for the possibility that he might have to break camp quickly and knew he could leave the barn behind in under twenty minutes. The first thing he should do was to tie Peebles to a tree and kill him in the manner dictated in the instructions he had received. But he had his own plans for Peebles and needed him alive for another day – just long enough to conduct a marriage ceremony. Moving his captive over to the RV, Cowboy checked his restraints and gag and locked him in the vehicle’s small bathroom. The next half hour was spent checking and arming the barn’s explosive devices as well as preparing the laser beam perimeter system that would set off the explosives when an intrusion occurred. Satisfied that everything was in order and that a nice surprise awaited the authorities when they converged on his hideout, Cowboy drove his Mercedes Airstream out of the barn and about 50 yards down the drive before returning to the barn to close and lock the doors. Once he reached the end of the drive he activated the perimeter intrusion system, ensuring that the barn and the vehicles inside would go up in a fireball when his pursuers tripped one of the sensors.
It was a beautiful warm sunny day in central Maine, and Cowboy was excited about being back on the road in his Mercedes and headed out of danger. By tomorrow night he will have completed his assignment, taken another bride, and be safely back over the border in Canada. He would be crossing back into Quebec at the same crossing station that he had used to enter Maine less than a month earlier, and with his Quebec license plates and driver’s license and his Canadian passport, he anticipated an easy time at the border. Turning north on Route 6, Cowboy had almost reached Greenville when several police vehicles passed him going south at a high rate of speed with their light bars lit up but with no sirens – no doubt part of the posse that was converging on his hideout.
It was crowded at the Indian Hill Trading Post when Cowboy stopped for groceries, which wasn’t surprising – weekenders were arriving at Moosehead on a Friday afternoon and stocking up. Feeling in the mood for a little celebration he stopped at the Dairy Bar in Greenville for a large soft serve ice cream cone. Looking across the street at the Black Frog restaurant, he wondered if Emma Lange was in her rented room preparing for tomorrow’s wedding celebration.
It was only a half hour drive from Greenville up the west side of Moosehead Lake to Rockwood, where Cowboy could catch the shuttle boat over to the Kineo Peninsula. He slowed but didn’t stop when he passed the Kennebec River parking lot, surprised at the large collection of people who had assembled to help with the search for George Peebles, who was safely tied up in the bathroom of his RV. When he reached Rockwood and the parking lot for the Kineo boat he pulled the Mercedes into a place at the far end of the lot, away from the other cars. After checking on Peebles – making sure he was securely tied and gagged, Cowboy locked the RV and walked over to the boat dock, joining a group of a dozen or so hikers and golfers waiting for the shuttle. He had done considerable web research on the peninsula and the different trails up to the summit of Mt. Kineo but wanted to gain first-hand knowledge of the terrain before tomorrow’s marriage. He also needed to pre-position his matrimonial tool kit and a few other items he would be using tomorrow in a well-hidden but easily accessible summit location.
Cowboy took the steep Indian Trail up, lagging behind a large group of boy scouts, and found a good place to hide his backpack, slipping it under the floor of the overnight camping lean-to. His leg had been bothering him a bit recently, probably from lifting Peebles into the bed of the pickup truck, so he decided not to follow the boy scouts as they clambered up the Mt. Kineo summit fire tower. On the descent Cowboy took the Bridle Trail down the gently sloping incline to the northern tip of the island, then circled back south along the western shore, arriving at the boat dock just in time to catch the shuttle back to the mainland.
Humming to himself as he crossed the parking lot, he was disconcerted to see a young man in a game warden’s uniform walking around the Mercedes and trying to peek in the windows. Cowboy called out a greeting.
“Hello. Can I help you?”
“This your vehicle?”
“Yes it is officer. Is there a problem?”
Frowning, the game warden responded.
“I’m not sure. Is there someone in there? I heard a banging noise when I walked by just now.”
“Oh. That’s just my dog Zack. I penned him up in the bathroom when I went over to Mt. Kineo.”
Noticing the skeptical look on the game warden’s face, Cowboy decided he better play it safe. No reason to get lazy this close to the end of his assignment.
“Come on in and meet Zack – he’s an old dog but very friendly.”
Opening the door of the RV, Cowboy ushered the game warden in and led him over to the door to the bathroom. Unlocking and opening the bathroom door, Cowboy took advantage of the warden’s shock at seeing Peebles lying on the floor, bound and gagged, and pushed him violently into the shower stall. Drawing his Ka-Bar knife from its sheath he drove it into the warden’s back in three swift strokes and pushed him to the floor of the shower.
